Thomas Nelson Page

“ Brooke of Brookford, who were the biggest people I ever knew. And I have spent my life for it. I have grown old before my time. I have gotten so that things have lost their taste to me; I have done things that I never dreamed I would do to accomplish it. I have lost the power to sleep working for it, and when you came I thought I would have my reward in you. I have not only never stinted you, but I have lavished money on you as if I was the richest man in New York. I wanted you to have advantages that I never had: as good as Norman Wentworth or any one else. ”

“ Don't believe one word that he tells you; for he is the most insidious flatterer that lives."
"On the contrary," said Keith, bowing and speaking gravely to the younger girl, "I assure you that you may believe implicitly every word that I tell you. I promise you in the beginning that I shall never tell you anything but the truth as long as I live. It shall be my claim upon your friendship."
"Thank you," said Lois, lifting her eyes to his face. Her color had deepened a little at his earnest manner. "I love a palpable truth."
"You do not get it often in Society," said Mrs. Lancaster. ”

“ The Englishman took the trouble again to put up his monocle and take a fleeting glance across the table. "He looks it," he said. "I mean, what does he do? Is he a capitalist like--like our host? Or is he just getting to be a capitalist?"
"I hope he is," replied Mrs. Lancaster, with a twinkle in her eyes that showed she enjoyed the Englishman's mystification. "He is engaged in mining."
She gave a rosy picture of the wealth in the region from which Keith came.
"All your men do something, I believe?" said the gentleman.
"All who are worth anything," assented Mrs. Lancaster. ”

“ The years, that had wrought Keith from a plain country lad into a man of affairs of such standing in New Leeds that a shrewd operator like Rawson had selected him for his representative, had also wrought a great change in Alice Lancaster. Alice had missed what she had once begun to expect, romance and all that it meant; but she had filled with dignity the place she had chosen. If Mr. Lancaster's absorption in serious concerns left her life more sombre than she had expected, at least she let no one know it. Association with a man like Mr. Lancaster had steadied and elevated her. ”

“ When they rose from the table, Keith, as he afterwards told Norman, felt like a squeezed orange. The friendliest man to him was Mr. Yorke, whom Keith found to be a jovial, sensible little man with kindly blue eyes and a humorous mouth. His chief cross-examiner was a Mr. Kestrel, a narrow-faced, parchment-skinned man with a thin white moustache that looked as if it had led a starved existence on his bloodless lip.
"Those people down there are opposed to progress," he said, buttoning up his pockets in a way he had, as if he were afraid of having them picked. ”

“ As the last spark of flame was extinguished the girl stopped, breathless. Thunders of applause broke out, but ceased as Terpy suddenly sank to the floor, clutching with her blackened hands at her throat. Keith caught her, and lowering her gently, straightened her dress. The next moment a woman sprang out of her box and knelt beside him; a woman's arm slipped under the dancer's head, and Lois Huntington, on her knees, was loosening Terpy's bodice as if she had been a sister. ”

“ Keith's thoughts sprang to the first time he ever saw her with a red rose near her heart--the rose he had given her, which the humming-bird had sought as its chalice.
The other ladies were all gowned in satin and velvet of rich colors, and were flaming in jewels, and as Mrs. Lancaster stood among them and they fell back a little on either side to look at her, they appeared, as it were, a setting for her. ”

“ It does not take two young people of opposite sexes long to overcome the formalities which convention has fixed among their seniors, especially when one of them has brought the other down a mountain-side in his arms.
Often, in a sheltered corner of the long verandah, Keith read to Alice on balmy afternoons, or in the moonlit evenings sauntered with her through the fields of their limited experience, and quoted snatches from his chosen favorites, poems that lived in his heart, and fancied her the "maid of the downward look and sidelong glance." ”

“ Most men, under such circumstances, would have retired and confessed defeat; but not so with Ferdy Wickersham. To admit defeat was gall and wormwood to him. His love for Louise had given place to a feeling almost akin to a desire for revenge. He would show her that he could conquer her pride. He would show the world that he could humble Norman Wentworth. His position appeared to him impregnable. At the head of a great business, the leader of the gayest set in the city, and the handsomest and coolest man in town--he was bound to win. ”

“ When Lois Huntington, after asking about his baggage, and exclaiming because he had sent his trunk on to New York and had brought only a valise, as if he were only stopping off between trains, finally settled herself down beside the General and took the reins of the little vehicle that she had come in, there was, perhaps, not a more pleased old gentleman in the world than the one who sat beside her.
"How you have grown!" he said, gazing at her with admiration. "Somehow, I always thought of you as a little girl--a very pretty little girl." ”

“ Keith explained that he was an engineer and lived in Gumbolt.
"Ah, I think that is a splendid profession," declared Miss Alice. "If I were a man I would be one. Think of building great bridges across mighty rivers, tunnelling great mountains!"
"Maybe even the sea itself," said Mr. Keith, who, so long as Alice's eyes were lighting up at the thought of his profession, cared not what Mrs. Yorke thought.
"I doubt if engineers would find much to do in New York," put in Mrs. Yorke. "I think the West would be a good field--the far West," she explained. ”

“ But that woman is such a fool!"
"Oh, she is not a bad woman," interrupted Keith.
"I do not know how bad she is," said Miss Abigail. "She is a fool. No good woman would ever have allowed such an intimacy as she allowed to come between her and her husband; and none but a fool would have permitted a man to make her his dupe. She did not even have the excuse of a temptation; for she is as cold as a tombstone."
"I assure you that you are mistaken," defended Keith. ”

“ Lancaster, bitterly. "Free! Free from what my heart aches for. Free to dress in sables and diamonds and die of loneliness." She had sat up, and her eyes were glowing and her color flashing in her cheeks in her energy.
Mrs. Wentworth looked at her with a curious expression in her eyes.
"I want what you have, Louise Caldwell. In that big house with only ourselves and servants--sometimes I could wish I were dead. I envy every woman I see on the street with her children. Yes, I am free--too free! I married for respect, and I have it. ”

“ Lancaster and Lois brought them closer together than before. The older woman seemed to find a new pleasure in the young girl's society, and as often as she could she had the girl at her house. Sometimes, too, Keith was of the party. He held himself in leash, and hardly dared face the fact that he had once more entered on the lane which, beginning among flowers, had proved so thorny in the end. Yet more and more he let himself drift into that sweet atmosphere whose light was the presence of Lois Huntington. ”

“ These people with all their shrewdness appeared to him to be in their way as contracted as his mountaineers. They lived to amass wealth, yet went like sheep in flocks, and were so blind that they could not recognize a great opportunity when it was presented. They were mere machines that ground through life as monotonously as the wheels in their factories, turning out riches, riches, riches.
This morning Keith had come across an article in a newspaper which, in a measure, explained his want of success. ”

“ Lois urged, with a swift glance up at him, which, somehow, Keith would have liked to avoid.
"Then, I suppose it must be so; for every one knows my innermost thoughts. But I think she was more beautiful when she was younger. I do not know what it is; but there is something in Society that, after a few years, takes away the bloom of ingenuousness and puts in its place just the least little shade of unreality."
"I know what you mean; but she is so beautiful that one would never notice it. What a power such beauty is! ”

“ The expression in his eyes changed like a flash, but something in Keith's eyes, as they met his, caused him to add, "if I did not know that you were a man of character. I, too, am a man of character, Mr. Keith. I want you to know it." Keith's eyes remained calm and cold as steel. Wickersham faltered. "I am a man of means--of large means. I am worth--. My balance in bank this moment is--is more than you will ever be worth. ”

“ Now and then, however, the smile died out as he heard Gordon expressing views which were somewhat new to him. One evening they were all seated on the verandah together, and Gordon began to speak of making a fortune as a high aim. He had heard Mrs. Yorke express the same sentiments a few days before.
"My son," said his father, gently, looking at him with grave eyes, "a fortune is a great blessing in the hands of the man who knows how to spend it. But riches considered as something to possess or to display is one of the most despicable and debasing of all the aims that men can have." ”

“ Mrs. Wentworth, immediately after presenting Keith to one or two ladies who were receiving, had been met and borne off by Ferdy Wickersham, and was in the throng at the far end of the great apartment, and some one had stopped Norman on the stairway. So Keith was left for a moment standing alone just inside the door. He had a sense of being charmed. Later, he tried to account for it. Was it the sight before him? Even such perfect harmony of color could hardly have done it. It must be the dazzling radiance of youth that almost made his eyes ache with its beauty. ”

“ He wanted Keith to take charge of his properties. It was a tempting offer to make Keith. The old man had been a shrewd negotiator.
There is no success so sweet as that which comes to a young man.
That night Keith spent out under the stars. Success had come. And its other name was Alice Yorke.
The way before Keith still stretched steep enough, but the light was on it, the sunshine caught peak after peak high up among the clouds themselves, and crowning the highest point, bathed in perpetual sunlight, was the image of Alice Yorke. ”

“ And he almost gave a gasp.
"Is she married happily?'" he asked "I hope she is happy."
"Oh, as happy as the day is long," declared Mrs. Wentworth, cheerfully. Deep down in her eyes was a wicked twinkle of malice. Her face wore a look of content. "He is not altogether indifferent yet," she said to herself. And when Keith said firmly that he was very glad to hear it, she did him the honor to disbelieve him.
"Of course, you know that Mr. Lancaster is a good deal older than Alice?"
Yes, Keith had heard so.
"But a charming man, and immensely rich."
"Yes." Keith began to look grim. ”

“ When General Keith left Brookford he was almost as much in love with his young hostess as his son could have been, and all the rest of his journey he was dreaming of what life might become if Gordon and she would but take a fancy to each other, and once more return to the old place. It would be like turning back the years and reversing the consequences of the war.
The General, on his arrival in New York, was full of his visit to Brookford and of Lois. "There is a girl after my own heart," he declared to Gordon, with enthusiasm. "Why don't you go down there and get that girl?" ”

“ Wickersham. "You know Mr. Keith?"
Keith was about to step forward to greet his old acquaintance; but Wickersham barely nodded.
"Ah, how do you do? Yes, I know Mr. Keith.--If I can take care of the present, I let the past and the future take care of themselves," he continued to Mrs. Lancaster. "Come and have a turn. That will make the present worth all of the past."
"Ferdy, you are discreet," said one of the other men, with a laugh.
"My dear fellow," said the young man, turning, "I assure you, you don't know half my virtues."
"What are your virtues, Ferdy?"
"One is not interfering with others." ”